When Lewis called me into his office to sign off on my thesis, he told me some parts were harrowing, terrifying and awful — then he congratulated me. We students flocked to Lewis and in return he was interested in us. He asked questions about where we were from, what we thought, why we were who we said we were. I’ll miss how he touched his face when he listened to you. How he nodded when you said something real. How he laughed. As a teacher, Lewis was gentle with our writing. For Lewis, as a writer, curiosity was not only a great virtue but a state of being.